Irish Book Awards 2026 shortlist: O'Farrell, Kennedy and Barry in the running
The An Post Irish Book Awards named this year's shortlists across 19 categories on 22 October. Public voting is open until 6pm on 13 November 2026.
The shortlists for the 2026 An Post Irish Book Awards were announced on Thursday 22 October, covering 19 categories in the awards' 21st year. Maggie O'Farrell's Land and Louise Kennedy's Stations are among eight books on the Novel of the Year list, and both also appear in the Listeners' Choice category.
Several categories have grown from six titles to eight this year, The Irish Times reports. The chair of the awards, Sinéad McCorry, called the lists "a wonderful reflection of the depth and diversity of talent across Irish writing".
Novel of the Year
The eight shortlisted novels are:
- Land by Maggie O'Farrell
- Stations by Louise Kennedy
- All Them Dogs by Djamel White
- Where Are the Kings by Donal Ryan
- Other People's Lives by Kathleen MacMahon
- The Newer World by Sebastian Barry
- Few and Far Between by Jan Carson
- The Weight of Angels by John Boyne
Djamel White's All Them Dogs is also on the Newcomer of the Year list, so a first novel is competing for the same prize as new books by several established writers.
Other categories to watch
The Author of the Year shortlist brings together Colm Tóibín for The News from Dublin, Doireann Ní Ghríofa for Said the Dead, Liz Nugent for The Truth About Ruby Cooper, Paddy Donnelly for The Upside-Down Lighthouse, P.J. Lynch with Eoin Colfer for Deerheart, and Sally Hayden for This is Also a Love Story.
Ní Ghríofa and Hayden are also on the Nonfiction Book of the Year list, alongside Sara Baume's Opening Night and Róisín Kiberd's The Most Normal Woman. The crime list includes Tana French's The Keeper and Jane Casey's Everything She Didn't Say. Biography of the Year includes Frank Shovlin's John McGahern: A Writing Life and Vincent Browne's Charles Haughey: Glory, Greed and Guns.
The awards also cover children's and young adult books, an Irish-language fiction prize, short stories and poems from New Irish Writing, and a Bookshop of the Year. That last list names six shops: Book Centre in Waterford, Charlie Byrne's in Galway, Woodbine in Kilcullen, O'Mahony's in Limerick, Tales for Tadpoles in Bray and Bridge Books in Dromore.
Why it matters
These are reader-facing awards. The public votes, and the shortlist works for many people as a ready-made reading list for the winter and for Christmas buying. For writers, the Newcomer of the Year list is worth a look: it shows the range of debuts Irish publishers took on this year, from crime to literary fiction.
What happens next
Public voting is open on the Irish Book Awards website and closes at 6pm on 13 November. Voters are entered into a draw for €100 in National Book Tokens. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on 1 December, which An Post says will be held at the Convention Centre, Dublin. A one-hour programme hosted by Oliver Callan will be broadcast on RTÉ One on 10 December, featuring six finalists and revealing the overall Irish Book of the Year.
If you want a place to start, the Novel of the Year list is a good spread: O'Farrell and Kennedy, a debut, and new work from Barry, Ryan, Boyne, Carson and MacMahon.
Sources
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